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Wednesday, 19 June 2013

A Bite Of... The Blood Bride

Forgive me, I am horrendously late with this A Bite of... but I'm happy to introduce the wonderful Imogene Nix with A Bite of her bookThe Blood Bride.

Can you in less than five words describe your book?Dark,
Vampiric but totally sexyWhat inspired you to write it?Gee, that’s hard.I guess I
wanted something that walked the line between the new look vampire themes and
the scorching offerings JThe Blood Bride just kind of appeared in my
head.Here's the snippet!

Hope hauled the last heavy box
up the stairs of the manor house, occasionally catching glimpses of the way her
midnight black hair shone in the sunlight, when she passed the window in the
living room of her apartment. “Thank heavens this is the last one,” she
muttered to herself, sliding the box down to rest on the floor, before
straightening and rubbing the nagging ache in her back. She could have had
help, all she needed to do was ask, but now that she was an adult she needed to
stand on her own two feet, she reminded herself.

Straightening up, she looked
around at the mass of boxes waiting for her to delve into. “Well, gone away and
back again. Where do I start first?”

The phone trilled and she
started for an instant, before extending her hand to the receiver on the shelf
beside her. “Hope.”

“Miss Hope, do you require any
help? Lisi is wondering if you require her assistance.” The muffled voice of
one of her guardians flowed out of the earpiece. She had forgotten that living
at the manor meant the goldfish bowl lifestyle she had tried her best to escape
at college. Not that she’d had much opportunity to live a free lifestyle. She’d
been lodged with a guardian family within the college grounds. Even then, her
personal team of five guards had shadowed her every move—to classes, shopping
and even to the hairdresser’s.

They hadn’t escaped her notice,
the looks some of her classmates had thrown her way. Longing for the lifestyle
they’d thought she enjoyed. Little did they know, Hope would happily have
swapped, a lot of the time. Downtime had existed within a carefully vetted
group of companions, each from houses of similar status. The cloying atmosphere
she hated, but, nonetheless, she had submitted to her parents’ will. Only a few
times had she sought to do activities that they would have deemed
inappropriate, but her conscience had always kicked in, and she had derived no
enjoyment from the guilty feelings that had overcome her.

“No thanks, Jeffrey. I have all
the boxes up here and I am going to take my time going through everything.” How
could she explain that she needed a freedom that had been denied? That this
small and almost insignificant rebellion was one she embraced? But she couldn’t.
It wasn’t fair to Jeffrey to share that.

“Fine, Miss Hope. Oh, and I am
supposed to remind you, the new Master has requested your presence in his
library after sundown.”

She nodded, knowing it was
expected that she would take her oath of fealty. “Oh. Right. I’ll be down for
sunset.” She laid down the receiver. It’s one thing to owe your continued
safety to a vampire nest Master, but quite another to be at his beck and call
all the time, just as her parents had been. Her temper spiked momentarily. The
emotion coiled through her then she shuddered, pushing away the negative
thought, while absently reaching for the boxes she needed to stack, store or
unpack. The rough exterior of some of them brushed against her hands. For now,
she had time. Lots of time.

Ripping the tape off the first
box, she then started to root through it, unwrapping reminders of her slightly
more free college life, formulating arguments to put to her parents, knowing
that the dice were stacked against her. Her life had been mapped out since her
birth, but perhaps she could find a way around some of the roadblocks. At least
she hoped so. With that thought, she set to work.